


Fuoco Per Vita

by spookyawards_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: An X-File Case, Episode: s02e04 Sleepless, F/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-15
Updated: 2006-01-15
Packaged: 2019-04-28 04:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14441640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyawards_archivist/pseuds/spookyawards_archivist
Summary: Not all freaks are bad, but they can still be very dangerous - a lesson Mulder doesn't learn soon enough.





	Fuoco Per Vita

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).

**RATING: PG**  
CLASSIFICATION: S, UST, (come on! when wasn't the show about UST?!), MT, SC, mini-casefile, and a tiny smidgen of myth-arc and angst. SPOILERS: Set early season 2 - pre-Sleepless - so anything up to then is game for a passing reference.  
SUMMARY: Not all freaks are bad, but they can still be very dangerous - a lesson Mulder doesn't learn soon enough. FEEDBACK: Adored and savored like a fine Chianti DISCLAIMER: The X-Files and all characters associated with it remain property of Chris Carter, Fox, 1013 etc. ...In my dreams they're all mine, mine, mine though - Bwahahahah!!!!!!!!! :) ARCHIVE: Let me know where, and I'll let you know if. AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for September's Open Theme fic challenge at Mulder's Refuge. Big hugs to Lisa, as ever, for everything - including the very nice artwork she did to accompany this - and to anybody that sends me positive feedback :) DEDICATION: To all at MR, because they're the best! 

* * *

"Scully, save me." 

Three words that form a desperate plea and yet are oddly comedic due to their rarity when it comes to passing his lips whine down the phone line and make her already-heavy eyelids slip shut. 

Two-thirty in the morning was really not the time for this! 

"Scully?" 

Her head shakes and free hand rises to wipe over her face, but despite the sudden concern he's injected into his tone she doesn't reply until another minute of silence has passed. Technically, they're no longer partners so his desperation to fill her in on everything - especially at this time in the morning - is a complete mystery ...Then again, _technically_ the X-Files were shut down, but she'd always known that that would never stop him, and when he'd told her yesterday about his newest unofficial 'mutant hunt' she'd been a long way from either surprised or prepared to try stop him. 

" _Scully_? You there?" 

"Yes, I'm here, Mulder - _wide_ awake at half-two in the morning!" She'd meant to make a joke of it, but it had come out as an aggressive bark and she could almost see him in his car at the other end of the line wincing. "As for saving you, I'm sorry but you put yourself there and it's no longer my job to watch your back." 

Mulder shifted uncomfortably in his car seat. She was right, of course, but in the year and a half they'd been partners he'd felt a closeness beyond explanation grow between them - a trust and friendship he'd never imagined possible, especially with somebody that had been sent to spy on him - and he didn't want to lose that just because of the FBI's plan to break him. He'd only mentioned the lead he'd gotten on a report of Spontaneous Human Combustion because of the hope she'd come with him to check it out...Do a stakeout just like on their second encounter with Eugene Tooms. 

He'd only phoned her now, despite knowing she'd be asleep, to hear her voice and relieve his loneliness. 

...And, God, that sounded really pathetic! 

"I'm sorry I woke you," he apologized sincerely - only briefly turning his glance away from the house he'd been watching for the past three hours to comb a hand through his thick, dark hair. "I just--" 'Just' what? "Actually, don't worry about it...Go back to sleep, Scully. I'll see you in the offi--...I mean..." Oh, crap. She probably really did think he was a jackass now! A crazy, selfish jackass. "I'm really sorry. I'll catch you later." 

His thumb was just reaching to disconnect the call, when she suddenly started, "How's the stake-out?" Sleepy and clearly still a little frustrated, but at the same time, God bless her, she actually, genuinely sounded interested! 

"Cold, wet, uneventful and I could really do with a root beer." 

Shifting to sit up against the headboard, Dana smiled and brushed several errant strands of hair away from her face. Their unauthorized session of surveillance was still fairly fresh in her memory, so the root beer joke was well understood, welcomed and appreciated. "Sorry, but I can't jump on the next plane to Georgia \- some of us have work we _are_ supposed to be doing in a few hours \- so the root beer will have to wait," she chuckled. "Seriously, though, Mulder, what are you hoping to achieve by doing this?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"You know they won't re-open the X-Files even if you solve this. A.D Skinner made no mention of the possibility after you solved the Flukeman case, th--" 

" _We_ solved it." 

"Whatever. The fact is, if they didn't open them then they're certainly not going to when they find out you've left your current assignment in favor of a more personally enriching mutant hunt!" 

Mulder nodded his head in acknowledgement to himself that what she'd said was true. Then again, if he were honest, he'd known that all along, as well as the fact that there was likely nothing about the fires and their victims construable as paranormal. 

But that was far from being the point. 

Whether the suspect was nothing more than a lowly pyromaniac successfully leaving behind no trace evidence of his guilt or not, Mulder knew he had a higher chance of wrapping up the case local law enforcement had failed to all while breaking protocol and literally demonstrating to the Powers That Be where to stick their stupid phone -tap detail. 

"You really don't know?" he eventually asked with a slight chuckle. "Scully, you should know by now that I'm never gonna be ready to roll over and do what they tell me to. I'm never gonna fit in with what they expect me to be, and anything they send my way to reel me back in is only ever gonna make me rebel against it twice as much... or embrace it and use it to my advantage..." He was keeping fingers crossed that she didn't misinterpret that addendum and think he was only using her as an ally to spite their superiors. "I can't just sit back listening to wire taps all day - it'll drive me crazy, and that won't get the X-Files back either." 

"I know." As her shoulders slumped in unavoidable defeat, Dana shook her head and quietly repeated "I know" almost to herself. "But you couldn't have dug up a more convincing X-File? Besides your fear of fire, we dealt with an arsonist before and it turned out to be far from relating to spontaneous combustion...You couldn't have found something a little more 'out there' or--" 

"Spooky?" 

Scully nodded, momentarily forgetting that he wasn't there to see the gesture, and quickly replied, "Something like that, yeah." 

"Wow: I've turned Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully to the dark side!" 

"Mul-der." 

The cautionary tone already so indelibly etched in his brain made any further quips quickly die in his throat. "It was the only thing I could find to follow," he finally conceded. "All the mutants must have gone on vacation. Anyway, who said anything about spontaneous human combustion?" 

"Uh, that would have been you, Mulder." 

"Me? Oh, okay...Well, I may have been a bit off the mark on that theory, but I'm not prepared to rule out all possibilities of supernatural activity." 

"Meaning?" 

It was almost 2:45 in the morning, and he knew she had to be at Quantico earlier than normal to run over some notes, so maybe it was time to let her be - waking her up for a quick chat just to hear her voice was one thing, but to make her too tired to work at full strength was quite another. "You know what, how about I give you a rundown another time? I really shouldn't have called you at this time as it is - get some sleep." 

She was actually considering insisting that he stay on the line and go over the casefile more in-depth than his brief summary had been yesterday, but a large yawn was her undoing and reminded her practical side why she'd been annoyed at him to begin with. "I-- Oh ...I guess that's my cue," she light-heartedly sighed - eyes closing as sleep wrapped its enticing arms around her. 

"Yeah." He would have said more, but the sound of deep, even breaths filled Mulder's ear and he couldn't help but smile. "Scully ...are you asleep?" 

Silence, but then, "...Mm..." 

"I'll talk to you later, then." 

"......Mm..." 

"Sweet dreams." 

"...Be...careful..." 

Her end of the line went dead, but for several long moments after he sat staring at the cellphone in his hand, drawing comfort, protection and company from it as if she were there with him instead. 

Maybe it wasn't going to be as long a night as he'd set out believing after all. 

* * *

**3010 GENIALS WAY**  
**RADCLIFFE, GEORGIA**  
2:48 AM 

He'd never considered his life easy: from the day he could walk the ...problem, if you could call it that, had hindered everything Aaron Goffin had ever done, but in the last couple of weeks it had become a lot more unpredictable, uncontrollable and dangerous. Two of his friends and a stranger he'd bumped into on the subway had died because of it, and it was only a matter of time before either the cops took him in and it killed them, or it finally consumed him. 

At the moment, the latter option didn't sound too far from appealing. 

His problem? Test after test had given it no medical or scientific name, but that didn't stop it from being very real: without warning, parts of his body would spontaneously combust for minutes at a time, leaving him with only very minor burns and anybody in physical contact reduced to ashes. His parents had always told him that he wasn't a freak or abomination ('There are people all over the world that have special abilities, and you're one of them') even after he'd accidentally incinerated his pet rabbit, but he'd been forced to forego school and at-home tuition, and keeping a job had proven too dangerous to be possible. When the local SeaWorld attraction had taken him on for employment and things had run fairly smoothly for the next month, Aaron'd dared to believe his luck was changing. 

Then Ursula Balovski - his team buddy at the park, and nearest thing he'd probably ever gotten or ever would get to a girlfriend - had touched his hand in a friendly gesture, and quickly become his 'ability's' first human victim. In a state of panic, he'd fled and left town - heading for a friend of the family's home here in Radcliffe. 

A picture of Ursula decimated to nothing more than a pile of ash and two shoed, intact feet (the only things used to identify who the victim was) appeared in the following morning's edition of the Courant. There had also been an article citing him as a suspect along with it, but he hadn't been able to read that. 

The only passenger in his car on the night train from Alpharetta had just gotten too close whilst walking by. 

Maybe he should have just bought a gun and shot himself then - it certainly would have spared the life of the last person he'd had left to turn to - but, regrettably, he hadn't and now he was lost with nowhere to go and somebody he didn't know sitting in a car outside his friend's house. 

"Stay calm," Goffin sighed, desperately trying to even out his breathing as he let go of the net curtain and walked away from the window. A hand raised to irritably comb through his unkempt ginger hair, but he could feel a familiar tingling sensation building within his body. It was a sensation that had become rare in the past fortnight - making way for the sudden blaze that gave him no chance to move away from others - but when he did feel it it gave him chance to try calm his senses a little. "There's no one here to hurt. It'll pass. I just...have...to stay...relaxed." 

The warmth spread down his leg and rapidly increased when it reached his foot, forcing him to sit back on the bed. 

"Breathe, A. Stay as cool as--" 

And then the fire erupted, illuminating the small room. 

* * *

Despite his insomniac tendencies, Mulder couldn't help but feel tired as he settled back in the car seat and folded both arms across his chest. Admittedly their life threatening trip to the woods, the death of Deep Throat, the shutting down of the X-Files and resulting separation of he and Scully, and the encounter at Arecibo had all helped to deprive him of even the minimum number of hours' sleep his body required to function. However, he'd always been able to depend upon his ability to stay alert when it was imperative - no matter how little sleep he'd had - and if he couldn't rely on that now to complete this stake-out, he was in trouble. 

As a car taking advantage of the dead hour sped past, causing a cloud of fallen leaves and dirt to pelt against the side of Mulder's rental, he reached to turn up the radio with one hand and pick up the case notes from the passenger seat with his other. 

"It's too disorganized," he grumbled, focusing on a crime scene photograph from the subway train car. "Or maybe it's the fact that it's not disorganized...If the fire had been set by a pyromaniac, why isn't any other part of the carriage burnt? The seating...even the walls..." Realizing he was talking out loud, Mulder paused and looked up to check nobody was watching. It was amazing - especially to him - to think how so accustomed he'd become to having somebody by his side to bounce his wild theories off of, and how much this silence that had always been his closest friend was now actually impeding his ability to solve the case! "No obvious source of ignition..." Another pause, this time as he shuffled through the pages to look at another photo. As he did so, though, a small square of paper slipped out and onto the floor under Mulder's feet. He #frowned, awkwardly reached down for it, and then turned it over in his hands to see the neatly scrawled message. 
    
    
            'Not everybody kills with purpose, Mr. Mulder, but 
            there'll always be others to take advantage of that 
            power.'
    
    

The fact that the language and handwriting was definitely not Scully's was the only thing Mulder was able to determine as he puzzled over the note. It must be another line from the new shady source he was yet to meet, but the meaning...? 

"'No obvious source of ignition...'" Another brief glance at the first picture, and then the theory struck like lightning. He'd flown to Georgia on nothing more than the premise that two bodies had been discovered burnt to the same condition as purported victims of SHC - the wide-eyed, out-there part of him wanting that to be the case, but the rational part Scully had given birth to in him questioning the idea enough to consider more mundane scenarios. A few questions here, several name drops there, and he'd successfully tracked down the only place where the PD's suspect had to go, but he'd still been far from coming up with a motive, let alone theory. Was it really possible-- Was this note implying that Goffin was somehow not burning people by intention? That, maybe, he had a lethal power that gave him the ability against his will? 

Mulling it over, Mulder looked up again at the house, just in time to see one of the previously-unlit bedroom windows now illuminated by a flickering glare that could only be caused by fire. 

* * *

With both feet still raised away from the floor and edge of the bed he sat on, Aaron slumped against the wall as the fire died. Thankfully, it had only been a brief burst, but with the remains of his friend downstairs still cooling, something inside told him it wouldn't be long before the next one. 

"I'm gonna become the Human Fireball at this rate," he sadly joked, struggling to muster a chuckle. ""A freak, as always." No matter what his parents believed - how perfect, lovely and special a person they insisted he was - there would never be any changing what others saw him as or what he, himself, had regarded himself as for his twenty-five years long life. If his uncertain future held whole body infernos or sparking off every few seconds in store, how could he truly be expected to regard himself as 'perfect' and carry on? He couldn't do this anymore...It had to stop before another person died... 

**"FBI!"**

The bedroom door sharply swung open and Aaron glanced up to see the silhouette of a man standing in the entranceway. Seconds later, the wall switch was flipped and the room filled with light to show that the visitor had a gun, and it was aimed at him. 

Mulder glanced around the room and then focused on Goffin. He'd found the proprietor's ashes and feet in the hallway downstairs when he'd kicked down the front door, but he'd expected to find yet another victim up here. Fortunately, he was wrong. 

"Aaron Goffin?" he asked, flexing his fingers to be better grip the gun. 

"D-don't come near me...please...I don't--..." The younger man paused and shook his head - finally, but tentatively, lowering his feet onto the floor. "I don't wanna hurt anyone else." 

With a nod and comforting quirk of the lips, Mulder re-holstered his weapon. "It's okay, I'm here to help." 

"You can't help - nobody can," Goffin lamented. "You don't even understand what it's like for me! To be too scared to sleep in case the bed catches light? To...to have no control over when a part of your body'll suddenly go up in flames? No friends, a family that tries to act as if everything's normal, dead bodies in your wake! You saw Gerry, right?" 

"Yeah." 

"He was the last person I could turn to, aside from my parents, and I _killed_ him! My only education may have come from watching the TV and looking at pi'tures in books, sir, but I know right from wrong, and I definitely know when I'm up Fudge Creek!" 

Despite the warning given, Mulder took several steps forward toward where Goffin sat. "I'm not going to pretend I understand what you're going through - in fact, you know, I haven't a clue about anything to do with you right now - but what I will tell you is that I'm usually pretty good with first impressions of people, and I don't think you're a bad person. In my job, I've met a lot of people with oddities and...and 'powers', say, but most of the time they wanna use that power for bad things - to cause havoc and pain. Trust me, if you're telling the truth about none of this being your fault, you should be proud that you've managed to be strong and stay on the right path." 

Another step forward, and his shins bumped up against the edge of the sprung mattress. 

Goffin's mouth opened to reject the statement, but he faltered momentarily and a doubtful frown creased his features. "fr-freaks m-m-more dangerous t-than me?" came the cautious tone desperately seeking a glimmer of hope, finally. "Bad freaks?" 

"Whoever said you were a freak?" Mulder snorted, daring to complete his trip across the room by sitting down next to the younger man. Whether Aaron hadn't noticed or not, the agent was unsure, but he didn't object and so Mulder didn't question. 

"How can I not be!? Parts of my body catch fire! What's 'normal about that?" 

"You're not a freak, but you are a suspect for two homicides...You know the police have been looking for you since the death of Miss Balovski, don't you?" 

Aaron simply gave a simple nod of his head. He could almost still sense the smell of her burning flesh clinging to the hairs in his nose. 

"If you explained your situation to them - what happened - maybe they can get some help for you." Goffin looked petrified by the idea, so Mulder reached to place a comforting hand on his right arm. 

Except, that was the instant it set alight. 

Mulder shot up off of the bed, flailing his own arm that was now ablaze left and right. Aaron was keening some desperate plea over and over again, but as his flesh begun to cook, the federal agent's last concern was the guilty party's cries. It seemed pointless, but he stripped off his jacket - desperately using it to swat at the bright, scorching flames as they defiantly licked at the air and scalded his skin. When that did nothing more than send blackened remains of his shirt sleeve floating to the floor, and rapidly encourage the fire up toward his shoulders - embers dropping to also ignite the leg of his pants - Mulder knew he only had one option left and he'd have to move fast. 

"I told you to stay away - I _begged_ you!" Goffin wept, cowering in the corner of the room and glancing down at his arm as the inferno died out as quickly as it had come. "And now I've done it again!" 

Blinding pain made way for writhing agony. Reddened tissue darkened in hue to purple and then an almost charred-black. His only hope was the bathroom sink downstairs, but as he painfully but instinctively ran as fast as possible for the staircase, Mulder wondered if he'd passed the point of no return. 

*...Sculleee!...* 

The glare from the bright flames along with the sweat pouring down his face made keeping his eyes open impossible, so he headed aimlessly forward, but as the agent reached the top of the stairs the overwhelming pain made his brain shut down, and his burning legs gave way. 

And like a rag doll, he tumbled to the bottom. 

* * *

"Sculleeeee!" 

Eyes flung open and Scully sharply sat up in her bed as she struggled for breath. Rationally she knew it had been a nightmare, but it had seemed so real, and the all-consuming heat-- 

Suddenly the phone on her bedside cabinet trilled to life. Still shaken by the dream, she answered on the fifth ring. "Scully." 

"Agent Scully, this is Assistant Director Skinner." 

That couldn't be good. He must have somehow found out about Mulder's little trip... 

"Can you explain to me why Agent Mulder abandoned his current assignment and took an unauthorized flight to Georgia?" boomed their boss's furious but clearly sleepy voice down the line. 

Bingo. 

She hesitated before answering, "I...uh...I wouldn't know, sir - I haven't--...I haven't spoken to Mulder for a couple of weeks." 

"Phone records show quite the opposite, Agent!" 

"I..." Dana fidgeted as she struggled to think of an answer to that. She couldn't lie, but then she also couldn't sell her expartner out and tell Skinner what he was doing...could she? "I really don't know what to say, sir. Mulder mentioned being fed up with the wire taps, but he never said anything about going anywhere. Do you know what he was doing in Georgia?" 

at his end, Skinner frowned. Despite their separation, he knew the two kept in contact and kept each other updated of things that were happening - be that with their private lives or days at work. But as many times as Mulder'd been known to unexpectedly ditch his partner, Skinner found himself wondering if Scully was really clueless, as she was making out. 

Not that it was easy to consider such things this early in the morning! 

"I have no idea, and that's why I expect you to find out all the answers." he finally huffed. "You'd better hurry, too: Mulder's been air-lifted to the burns unit at Grady Memorial in critical condition." 

Scully's eyes quickly grew to the size of saucers - the nightmare now much more real than she'd initially imagined. A lump of fear blocked her throat, but by the time it shifted a fraction and she was able to croak out, "Sir?" the caller had already hung up. 

^ ^ ^ 

**BURNS WARD**  
**GRADY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL**  
**ATLANTA, GA**  
**EIGHT DAYS LATER**

Of course, Skinner had demanded updates on his agent's condition, but thankfully not made the trip to the hospital. Scully had worked to stay professional and keep him well appraised, but the sight of Mulder's unconscious, intubated, bandaged body in the hospital bed - tubes left, right and center necessary to fill him with intravenous fluids if there was to be any hope of keeping him alive - made it difficult to function at all. 

The past week had rolled along painfully slow, but she'd refused to leave his bedside. Tests, skin grafts and antibiotics had become the mundane routine for each day, and yet still his eyes had not opened - no sign at all, save for the steady beeping from the ECG monitor - that he was even really still in there. 

Having just finished informing their boss of today's run of checkups, Dana pocketed her cellphone, quietly made her way into Mulder's room and then sat down in the chair at his bedside. No words passed her lips, but she grasped his unharmed right hand in her own and stared at his face - praying for his recovery and willing him to wake up. 

Nothing happened, and eventually she fell asleep with tears in her eyes. 

* * *

11:22 PM 

It was a struggle, but eventually he was able to fight off the darkness that had claimed and kept him captive for the last eight days. As awareness returned, however, so did the stinging, burning sensation spreading down the whole left side of his body. He tried to let out a painful groan, but it became muffled around something that had been placed in his airway. 

"Mulder? Mulder, are you awake?" 

That voice! That feel of her hand cradling his! Could it be...? 

Unable to verbally respond, Mulder let out another groan and then attempted to open his eyes. It took several moments, but eventually they opened, and after yet another minute of trying to focus he was able to see the frame of red hair and her exhausted-yet-beautiful face. 

"It's going to be okay - don't try to talk," she assured with a smile, resting her other hand against his forehead. "I'm going to call the doctor, okay?" 

With more effort than he'd been willing to exert, Mulder managed to nod and watched as she left the room - leaving him to think about what had happened at that house. 

Ten minutes later Scully returned with a white-coated woman actually shorter than herself that claimed to be his doctor. He shot a questioning frown at his partner, but she simply shrugged and asked doctor about the possibility of removing his intubation. 

Another examination, another shot of pain meds, and he was freed from the breathing aid. Exhausted, though, he quickly fell asleep again. 

* * *

1:14 AM 

"Scully?...Are you awake?" 

He doubted he'd get a reply from her - she looked worse than he felt, and he found it difficult to believe that she would have flown all this way to stay posted at his bedside - but she surprised him when her head slowly lifted and she sleepily mustered, 

"Are you okay, Mulder?" 

"Couldn't stay asleep," he weakly croaked. "Hurts." 

"Do you want me to call the nurse?" 

"No, s'okay for now... Been wondering - need to know what happened... How I'm not a pile of ash like the others." 

Dana gave an uncertain shake of her head. No matter how relieved she was, the fact that Mulder had actually placed a call to the police department asking for backup _before_ entering the house he'd been surveilling just had to have been the most unbelievable thing she'd ever heard. 

The news she'd been informed of the following day had to come close second. 

"You were very lucky is why," she smiled, squeezing his hand. "Very lucky, and very clever for once. The police and fire departments arrived just as you hit the bottom of the stairs. Another--... Another ten seconds later and we wouldn't have been able to have this conversation." Her voice trailed off, and for the briefest instant he was able to take a peek through a crack in the wall around her heart before it repaired itself. Those moments when he was reminded that she wasn't the 'Ice Queen' everybody referred to her as seemed only reserved for him and it made him feel even more special in her eyes. "As it is you have fifteen percent partial thickness and five percent full thickness burns across your left arm, legs and chest - it's going to take a long time for you to heal, and even then there will still be some scarring." 

Mulder closed his eyes and kept them tightly shut as the full weight of Scully's words pressed down on him. "What about Goffin?" he asked, still refusing to open his eyes again. "Was he arrested?" 

There was no reply, and that was when his eyelids lifted so that he could incredulously stare at her. 

"Scully?" 

The hold on his hand suddenly disappeared. "Skinner's furious at you - you may have completely destroyed any hope you had of getting the X-Files back," she replied, avoiding his question and turning to pace the room. 

"That doesn't--...I don't care about that right now. I wanna know what happened to Goffin. He did the murders, but it wasn't intentional - I need to explain that to the police chief, an--" 

"Mulder, Aaron Goffin is currently missing." 

"Wha--?" 

"He was arrested at Gerry Stanz's home when you were rescued, and he was locked up for the rest of the night, but in the morning...His cell door was discovered open and he was nowhere to be found." 

Despite his injuries, Mulder suddenly pulled the bed covers back and shakily shifted to hang his legs over the edge. Scully sharply turned on her heel and rushed to stop him. "Mulder, what are you doing?" 

"We have to find him! They...They have him!" 

"Who has him? Mulder, lay back down and tell me what you're talking about." Worried for the sake of his health, she gently placed a palm against his right shoulder and pressed until he finally lay down. "You're not going to help anyone but trying to kill yourself again." 

"They have him," he repeated, more weakly, as she carefully lifted his bandaged legs back up onto the mattress. "...Them..." 

"You're making no sense - who are 'they'?" 

"Th-Those working against u-us...We have to find him and help him." 

It took her a moment to think the options over, but then she shook her head and sighed, "No, we have to make you better and then fly back to D.C. It's over, Mulder. It shouldn't even have started in the first place." 

"He can spontaneously combust without warning..." 

"It doesn't matter anymore, and I'm too tired to care. If you really must, you can argue it out with Skinner when we get back to Washington - even OPC when they meet with you - but I don't want to argue with you about it. Okay?" 

He had already fallen asleep again. 

* * *

**UNKNOWN LOCATION**  
**TWO WEEKS LATER**  
2:47 PM 

The tall figure of a man shrouded in shadows moved swiftly down the long corridor and stopped when he reached the door to his destination. He knocked with his free hand, and was admitted entrance almost immediately. 

"The fire consumed him twenty minutes ago, sir. His remains have been taken to the lab for further analysis," he started, sliding the clipboard that had been stowed under his arm onto his boss's desk. 

The seated figure turned in the chair to look out through the large window at the end of his office. "Did you get all the necessary tests done? Do we know how his body was able to tolerate such heat? How he contained the infernos?" 

"No, sir, but we still have a lot of tests to be run on the blood and tissue samples." 

There was a pause as the dark man considered this before he finally ordered, "Tell me the results as soon as we have them. If we can recreate or even improve on Mister Goffin, it will be a major step forward." 

"Yes, sir." The soldier saluted and then exited the room - the door closing behind him making the pages on the clipboard he'd left lift up on the ripple of air, and the photograph of a sad Aaron Goffin float to the floor before it mysteriously disappeared in a ball of flame. 

* * *

**THE END**

'A flow of words is no proof of wisdom' 

~English proverb 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: There's no intention for a sequel, but if I get poked enough I'm always willing to answer requests :) By the way, the title is Itakian for 'Fire For Life'. 

#### If you enjoyed this story, please feed the author.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: **Fuoco Per Vita**  
Author: XSketch  
Details: 30k  ·  PG  ·  Standalone  ·  01/15/06  ·   Email/Website      
Gossamer Category(Keywords): X-File   [UST]     
Pairings: Mulder/Scully UST   
SPOILERS: Set early season 2 - pre-Sleepless - so anything up to then is game for a passing reference.   
SUMMARY: Not all freaks are bad, but they can still be very dangerous - a lesson Mulder doesn't learn soon enough. 


End file.
